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Museo Popol Vuh

1978 establishments in GuatemalaArchaeological museums in GuatemalaArt museums established in 1978Buildings and structures in Guatemala CityMesoamerican art museums
Museums in GuatemalaUniversidad Francisco Marroquín
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The Museo Popol Vuh (Popol Vuh Museum) is home to one of the major collections of Maya art in the world. It is located on the campus of the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Zone 10, Guatemala City and is known for its extensive collection of pre-Columbian and colonial art of the Maya culture. The Popol Vuh Museum is a private, nonprofit, scientific institution supported by its own funds and external donations. The museum is operated by a Board of Directors of citizens of Guatemala interested in the preservation and public display of the exhibits. One of its missions is to provide an educational focus for people who want to see and learn about the pre-Columbian past of Guatemala with the preservation, research, and diffusion of information.Although the museum is well known for its funerary ceramic art, the collection includes a variety of portable stone sculptures, especially from the Preclassic period, and from the coast and adjacent highlands. The section on Maya pottery includes some of the best preserved Maya vases and bowls.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Museo Popol Vuh (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Museo Popol Vuh
28 Calle, Guatemala City

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N 14.624722222222 ° E -90.532777777778 °
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28 Calle

28 Calle
01003 Guatemala City
Guatemala Department, Guatemala
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Guatemala City
Guatemala City

Guatemala City (Spanish: Ciudad de Guatemala), locally known as Guatemala or Guate, officially Ciudad de Guatemala (art. 231 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala), is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, nestled in a mountain valley called Valle de la Ermita (English: Hermitage Valley). The city is the capital of the Municipality of Guatemala and of the Guatemala Department. Guatemala City is the site of the Mayan city of Kaminaljuyu, founded around 1500 BC. Following the Spanish conquest, a new town was established, and in 1776 it was made capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. In 1821, Guatemala City was the scene of the declaration of independence of Central America from Spain, after which it became the capital of the newly established United Provinces of Central America (later the Federal Republic of Central America).In 1847, Guatemala declared itself an independent republic, with Guatemala City as its capital. The city was originally located in what is now Antigua Guatemala, and was moved to its current location in 1777.Guatemala City and the original location in Antigua Guatemala were almost completely destroyed by the 1917–18 earthquakes. Reconstructions following the earthquakes have resulted in a more modern architectural landscape. Today, Guatemala City is the political, cultural, and economic center of Guatemala.

Kaminaljuyu
Kaminaljuyu

Kaminaljuyu (pronounced ) is a Pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization that was primarily occupied from 1500 BC to AD 1200. Kaminaljuyu has been described as one of the greatest of all archaeological sites in the New World by Michael Coe, although its remains today – a few mounds only – are far less impressive than other Maya sites more frequented by tourists. When first mapped scientifically (by E. M. Shook over a period of decades from the 1930s on), it comprised some 200 platforms and pyramidal mounds, at least half of which were created before the end of the Preclassic period (250 AD). Debate continues about the size, scale, and degree by which, as an economic and political entity, it integrated both the immediate Valley of Guatemala and the Southern Maya area.The known parts of Kaminaljuyu lie on a broad plain beneath roughly the western third of modern Guatemala City. The Valley of Guatemala is surrounded by hills that culminate in a string of lofty volcanoes to the south. At an altitude of about 2000 m (7000 feet) above sea level, the climate is temperate. Soils are rich because of frequent volcanic eruptions; volcanic ash in the form of hardened tuff reaches depths of several hundred meters in and around Kaminaljuyu, and deep clefts or barrancas mark the landscape. The Kaminaljuyu site was largely swallowed up by real estate developments in the late 20th century, although a portion of the Classic period center of Kaminaljuyu is preserved as a park. The distinctly unimpressive character of the extant remains is due not only to the location of the ancient city beneath a rapidly expanding Developing World capital city but also because the ancient architecture was constructed of hardened adobe, more perishable than the limestone used to build the cities in the Maya Lowlands. Because of these factors, the true size and scale of Kaminaljuyu is likely to be never known. The state of destruction and the almost daily erasure of archaeological context underscore the many mysteries, in addition to size and scale, that likely will remain unanswered about Kaminaljuyu. Principally these questions are posed about the role of the city as the greatest of the Southern Maya area (SMA) in Preclassic times, particularly during the "Miraflores" period, c. 400–100 BC; the SMA is long believed from much and diverse evidence to have been seminal in the development of Maya civilization.